There is a chance that Mauricio Dubon will make the 2023 All-Star Team. He of the career .244/.287/.366 line before this season. He who hasn’t topped 265 plate appearances in his young career.
When Jose Altuve was injured during the World Baseball Classic, taking a fastball off the wrist, it opened up a spot at second base for someone. Dubon seized the day and won regular playing time by just consistently hitting.
He authored a 20-game hitting streak and has a respectable .285/.307/.407 line on the season. He’s probably the second-best defensive second baseman in the AL so far this season. If you squint, you could see him being selected as a reserve to the All-Star Game.
Which would be weird! He’s not the starting second baseman regularly. Now that’s Jose Altuve, franchise mainstay. He doesn’t have a track record of hitting like this. Indeed, his hitting numbers have fallen off some in recent months as his playing time got more erratic (He has a .269 OBP in June, but thanks to 3 home runs, he actually has a higher slugging percentage than any other month).
This whole situation got me thinking. Is he the least likely Astro to become an All-Star (if it happens)? Who are some other Weird Astros All-Stars from the past.
I won’t present you with a ton here, just three.
John Hudek
In 1994, Houston’s long rebuild after their playoff teams of the 80’s paid off. The Astros were pacing the National League and sent five players to the All-Star Game that summer, which was a franchise record that stood until 2017.
Those 94 All-Stars? Soon-to-be league MVP Jeff Bagwell. Hall of Famer Craig Biggio. Astros legend Ken Caminiti. Former Cy Young Award winner Doug Drabek. And 27-year-old rookie, waiver claim, and rookie closer John Hudek.
Hudek was drafted by the Chicago White Sox out of Florida Southern College in 1988. He toiled for five years in the ChiSox minor leagues, reaching Triple-A by 1992, but never the majors. He was plucked out of Chicago’s system by the Detroit Tigers in the Rule 5 draft that winter.
When the Tigers waived him in the middle of the ‘93 season after he posted a 5.82 ERA in 38 2/3 innings for their Triple-A team, the Toledo Mud Hens, Houston claimed him and sent him to their Triple-A squad in Tucson.
Hudek fared much better there. This article mentions that the Tigers had altered his delivery, which led to a sore arm. Houston brought him back to his original delivery and the results followed.
He didn’t make the team out of spring training in 1994, but by May 5, he was closing games as Wild Thing Mitch Williams fell out of favor with Houston.
By July, he was an All-Star.
This contemporary article does a great job chronicling his rise to All-Stardom and his long road to the majors. It’s wild to read how he became “Nolan Ryan” when his fastball jumped from the 80s to 92-95. It was a different time.
Two more Hudek weirdness mentions here.
He had a poor 1995 season because a fractured rib was causing health problems. So Hudek had the offending piece of rib removed and gilded and wore it around his neck. I remember reading that in 1996 when I was a wee lad in high school and it was so bizarre, the story stuck with me through the years. This article from the Orlando Sentinel backs it up. The Houston Chronicle story had a big splashy photo of him holding up his rib necklace, if I remember correctly. But since I’m an old man, I probably don’t remember correctly at all.
The other funny Hudek connection I have is covering his daughter, Sarah Hudek, in high school. Sarah played for George Ranch in Richmond when I worked for the Fort Bend Herald. She was very good, used as a reliever on a team that went to the state championship.
She also went on to play college baseball for a season or two before switching to softball. I saw her dad a few times at games that year, but my social awkwardness and the fact I was usually in the press box or stands trying to cover the game led to me not ever meeting him.
Still, I wish I could have asked him if he still wore his rib around his neck every day.
Hudek’s Astros career was over in 1997 when the team traded him to the Mets for dinosaur denier Carl Everett. I’d say that deal worked out okay for them.
Claude Raymond
I will not go as deep about “Frenchy” here. Partly because there’s this great SABR article about his career and partly because I don’t know how “weird” his All-Star appearance was.
In the early days of Houston’s franchise, it was easier for someone to stand out. Raymond had bounced around a little but pitched solidly for the Astros before earning his All-Star nod.
It’s neat that he was selected by Walter Alston. That’s the legendary Hall of Fame Dodgers manager Walter Alston, who played in the majors in 1936, won a world championship in 1954 and was still managing in Los Angeles in 1966 when Frenchy was selected as an All-Star. Time is neat.
The reason I thought Raymond deserved mention here is his status as the first Quebec-born player to be named an All-Star.
“If it is true that every boy born in the United States comes with a baseball glove on his hand, in Quebec children are more likely to enter the world wearing a pair of ice skates. Claude Raymond, the first baseball player from Quebec ever selected for a major-league All-Star Game, was no exception.”
A-plus opening paragraph there. Baseball writing is so fun sometimes.
“In 1965, still with Houston, Raymond started seven games before ending the year in the bullpen with a respectable 7-4, 2.90 record. At midseason in 1966, now serving as a short-relief specialist, he led both leagues in earned–run average (1.35). Dodgers manager Walter Alston selected Raymond for the All-Star Game squad, a first for a Quebec-born player. (At that time, the teams were chosen by the managers, coaches, and players.) “I was not allowed to tell anybody. I did call my parents and they drove to St. Louis,” he said in 1992.[15]
However, much like the situation when his parents had driven to Milwaukee, Raymond remained on the sidelines. Alston was content to stick with only four pitchers that day. “I was disappointed but that was the way things were back then. Alston did have me warm up when Sandy Koufax threw three consecutive balls in the third inning. It was 117 degrees on the field (in St. Louis), and so that didn’t take me very long.”
Raymond’s Astros career was over in 1967 when he was sent back to the Braves, but he did go on to pitch in relief for three more teams, including being the first Canadian-born player to play for a Canadian team, when he joined the Montreal Expos.
Raymond went on to be a beloved broadcaster for Le Expos, was enshrined in the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, and received the Order of Canada in 2019, whatever that is.
In his biography on the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame site, they call him “greatest big leaguer ever to come out of the province of Quebec,” which is pretty high praise.
It also makes him very unique in Astros lore. He was the first Astros All-Star from Canada, but just barely. Fellow Canuck Rusty Staub was selected in 1967 and Terry Puhl was selected in 1978. Both are also in the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, along with former Astros coach Jimmy Williams (not the early 2000’s manager Jimy Williams, but the 1975 coach Jimmy Williams), and former pitcher Ron Taylor, who spent a season and a half in Houston at the same time Rusty Staub and Raymond were there. The mid-60s were lousy with Canucks in Houston!
Jerry Mumphrey
My selection for the weirdest All-Star in team history has to be Mumphrey.
The Texas native was drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals in 1971 and debuted with the Cards in 1974. He didn’t break through to regular playing time until 1976, however.
And he was fine? His first four full-time years, he had a 91 OPS+. Below league average but not bad. He stole 66 bases in that time, but was caught 42 times. Not great. He only hit 8 home runs in those first four years, but did have 22 triples, so he had some wheels.
Things took off in 1980. But they also got weird. See, Mumphrey was traded five times in his career. Two of those happened in the 1979-80 offseason.
The first was a trade for Bobby Bonds to Cleveland. John Denny also went to Cleveland. Bobby Bonds was basically done at the time, playing 86 games for St. Louis in 1980 before capping his career with the Cubs the next year. Denny would win a Cy Young four years later, but for Philly, not Cleveland.
Mumphrey, meanwhile, was traded again right before the season to the San Diego Padres. There, he put up an OPS+ of 108 and stole 52 of 57 bases. Those Padres went 73-89-1, though, so Mumphrey didn’t find much success, even though the starting lineup for that Padres team featured former All-Stars Dave Cash and Gene Tenace, and future Hall of Famers Ozzie Smith and Dave Winfield.
Of course, Mumphrey was traded again and into one of the best situations of his career. He joined the 1981 Yankees team that went to the World Series, before losing to the Dodgers. Mumphrey started in center field between Reggie Jackson and Winfield. This is what he said after the trade:
"I just...you know, I just...you know," said Mumphrey, "It's a great opportunity. I'm very happy. I've never been on a winner before. It will be a great experience for me."
Mumphrey ended the season with a line of .307/.354/.429 with 14 steals and 6 home runs. He finished 20th in the MVP voting, behind teammates Winfield and Goose Gossage.
Mumphrey went 3-for-15 in the World Series that year, stealing a base. 1981 was the only time he made the playoffs in his career.
Two years later, he drew the ire of both manager Billy Martin and owner George Steinbrenner. From an article in the 1983 offseason:
''I can't figure out why they pick me,'' Jerry Mumphrey asked today. ''I think it's a lot of unnecessary pressure they're putting on me going into the season.''
Mumphrey, the Yankees' center fielder, was talking about George Steinbrenner, the Yankees' principal owner, and Billy Martin, the Yankees' manager. Both have made some uncomplimentary comments about Mumphrey's style of play, and he doesn't understand their motives.
''If they want me here, fine,'' Mumphrey said before his second spring workout. ''If they don't want me here, I'm sure there's some other team that does.''
Those Yankees teams were wild. Can you imagine an owner calling out a player like that now? Calling him a “numbers-hanger,” for putting up stats but not helping the team win? The baseball world would go nuts.
It’s not surprising that later in 1983, Mumphrey was traded to the Astros for Omar Moreno, himself a well-traveled center fielder who had gotten MVP votes in 1979 with the World Series champion Pirates.
In Houston, Mumphrey hit well. He had an OPS+ of 152 with an on-base percentage of .425 in 167 plate appearances with the Astros.
That success carried over into 1984, when he got his only All-Star nod. He stole 15 bases that year and hit 9 homers. He also hit cleanup for a portion of that year and finished second on the team in home runs with 9. The Astrodome was a weird place, man.
A year later, he was traded to the Cubs for Billy Hatcher.
Hatcher, of course, would go on to his own heroics in the Astros magic 1986 season.
Still, Mumphrey’s All-Star nod is weird. He was decent hitter with a little speed and no real pop. His selection wasn’t egregious. He just didn’t do anything notable as an Astro. He was probably a name at the time because of his Yankees days, but didn’t make a lasting impact in Houston.
If anything, Astros Daily put it best:
“Overall, he hit .289 with 70 homers and 174 RBIs but is perhaps the most anonymous All-Star in franchise history.”
If you’re interested in more about Mumphrey, this SABR article is terrific. It reveals so many more weird details about Mumphrey’s career, like how he got the Cardinals listening to the Sister Sledge song “We Are Family” before the Pirates adopted it in the 1979 season. Which makes it even more wild that he was traded for Moreno.
Baseball, man. Full of such cool coincidences.